The last overlap standing: Why the Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico double-feature deserves to survive UCI reforms

Overlapping races have come under scrutiny before - most notably in 2022, when the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Director of Sports claimed that, alongside reducing the number of races on the calendar, the UCI would no longer allow overlaps. However, no outright ban came into fruition. 

Now, however, the UCI has renewed its interest in reforming the sport, and has launched a consultation to gather suggestions from stakeholders. As the talk about reforming cycling continues to rear its head, so may the threat to the iconic double-feature that is Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico. Yet if this year’s edition has told me anything, it’s that putting an end to this timeless tradition is far from what the sport needs.

Whilst it isn’t the only World-Tour stage race double-bill on the calendar - the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour de Suisse have often overlapped by a few days over the years too - it remains the longest-standing, and by far the most iconic. 

For around 60 years, following Tirreno-Adriatico’s entrance onto the scene in 1966, the two WorldTour races have taken place during the same week in March, with Paris-Nice starting on a Sunday, and Tirreno-Adriatico the Monday. Despite Paris-Nice having traditionally been the more prestigious race, beginning in 1933, Tirreno-Adriatico has now caught up, with many of cycling’s top stars over the years choosing to swap the ‘Race to the Sun’ for the ‘Race of the Two Seas’ and a chance to lift the iconic trident-shaped trophy. 

Nowadays, the two races seem to have equal pull, and their adjacent positioning has only boosted this.

Furthermore, the specific placement of the two races on the calendar - towards the beginning of the season, and filling up the downtime between Strade Bianche and Milan-Sanremo - couldn’t be more perfect. 

This placement capitalises on the excitement and buzz we all feel circulating in the early part of the season. It also results in them usually being the first WorldTour stage races that the top GC riders will compete in, which in itself garners more attention, as fans eagerly look to eye up the form of the top favourites ahead of their upcoming goals. If either one of these two races was to be moved, the question would then be: where to? 

Arguably there’s not a better place on the calendar for either of the two races. Separating and reassigning them to different spots (as was anomalously the case in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic) on a permanent basis, could lead to them losing the prestige and heightened interest they’ve gained as a result of their current placement and proximity to one another. 

Many now refer to this week in March as the ‘busiest week in cycling’, and twice the amount of racing leads to twice the amount of excitement and hype. Both are genuinely exciting races in their own right, with interesting parcours that include something for every type of rider, and having both of these races underway at the same time ensures that fans remain entertained even when a stage in one race turns out to be ever-so-slightly less interesting than the other. 

At the first sight of a 50+ kilometre solo victory, or a pancake-flat sprint stage with no breakaway, fans can ‘change the channel’ and move between the races in pursuit of decisive action. And where a stage is cancelled or shortened, as was the case with Stage 7 of this year’s Paris-Nice (cut down to just 47 kilometres due to the weather conditions), having another race on the go at the same time ensures that fans still have something to satiate their appetite for racing.

In this current era of cycling - where the top GC riders rarely show up to the same start line before June, and complaints have been mounting that this ducking and dodging makes the sport less exciting to follow - those that oppose overlapping races often argue that giving riders a choice between two races instead of one makes things worse. I find, however, that the spread of riders across the races can often lead to more interesting battles and unexpected results. 

For example, the Paris-Nice sprint field was thinner this year (with the likes of Mads Pedersen, Tim Merlier and Olav Kooij not racing, and Jasper Philipsen and Jonathan Milan preferring to race in Italy instead) but this arguably led to more interesting results. On Stage 1, it was impossible to predict the winner before Luke Lamperti ultimately sprinted to victory. And on Stage 2, most fans wouldn’t have predicted that Max Kanter (a relative ‘underdog’ compared to some of the other sprinters on the startlist) would claim his first ever WorldTour victory - I know I didn’t. 

This persuaded me that perhaps having split fields, even where one race ends up with the ‘weaker’ competition, can actually make the racing more exciting and generate unexpected ‘feel-good’ results, which are much-needed in today’s era of cycling, as it becomes increasingly overtaken by predictable dominance. 

Speaking of dominance, the Paris-Nice GC field was also weaker this year (hardly helped by a number of the GC hopefuls, such as Juan Ayuso, David Gaudu and Oscar Onley, being forced to abandon due to crashes or illness), and admittedly, this removed tension from the GC battle and allowed Jonas Vingegaard to go on to win the whole race by over four minutes. 

Yet, I would argue that this would’ve also been the case in Tirreno-Adriatico too, if he’d raced there, despite there being stronger GC competition. This would also have happened in either race with Tadej Pogačar, if he’d been present, no matter the competition. A stacked field of GC contenders will always come up short if there are one or two riders present that consistently dominate the rest. If we’re being realistic, concentrating all of the riders into one race won’t do much to change this.

Another reason that critics of overlapping races commonly give for why they should be banned, is that they’re hard for the fans to follow. With multiple races going on at the same time, it takes hours out of the day (and often, a carefully set-up multi-screen display) for fans to be able to follow all the action. It can also even be difficult to keep track of which riders are participating in which race - a trap that has caught out both fans commenting on social media and official race commentators alike.

However this year, as in some previous editions, the race timings on the whole lined up perfectly. For the majority of stages, I could be seated for Tirreno-Adriatico first, before switching to Paris-Nice once that ended, without missing a beat of the action on the French roads. 

Even the stage profiles were complimentary, with the time trials and sprint stages occurring on different days, and each stage being raced so differently that I think all fans, no matter the type of racing that they prefer, would’ve ended each day feeling satisfied with at least some of what they had witnessed.  

Admittedly, this year’s edition hasn’t been without fault. For example, many are of the opinion that as a result of the weaker field at Paris-Nice, the French race was less interesting. Yet I’m reluctant to allow this to feed into the argument that it’s the split of riders across two races that’s to blame. This year’s Tirreno-Adriatico produced exceptionally exciting racing, even without, and potentially thanks to, the presence of the riders that decided to race in Paris-Nice instead. 

And even if the two races weren’t scheduled at the same time, there’s still no guarantee that all of the top riders would show up to just one. Taking a look at the rest of the calendar (where most other WorldTour stage races enjoy their own spot) the top riders still manage to avoid appearing alongside each other in all but a few.  

With all that said, I’d go as far as to say that the current arguments for removing overlapping races from the calendar are unconvincing. And if this year’s edition showed me anything, it’s that as long as the timings continue to line up, this Franco-Italian double-bill deserves to survive any UCI reforms that may take effect, and remain on the calendar for years to come.